Speaking at a luncheon at the Merrill Lynch Hardware Heaven Technology Conference here, Capellas, who will take over as the president of Hewlett-Packard once the merger with Compaq is complete, said that contrary to popular belief, Linux is not taking market share from Windows. Rather, he said, Linux and Windows are combining to eliminate Unix on midrange systems.

"You're going to see Linux and Windows absolutely eviscerate the midrange Unix market," said Capellas.

This will put the combined HP-Compaq in a prime position in the server market, as the company moves forward to support industry standards such as Linux, he said. "Our message is very simple,we will continue to drive the move to industry-standard computing in the mass market," said Capellas.

In addition, Capellas reiterated the new HP's intent to establish a primarily direct-sales model in the U.S. market, while at the same time assuring that the new company does not intend to get into the systems integration business.

"In the United States, a good portion of the market will be direct," said Capellas. "The market already has determined that."

But Capellas said the "sweet spot" for the combined HP-Compaq is in "customer support," not systems integration. "We are not in the systems integration business," he said, adding that rather than emulate services monolith IBM Global Services, the new HP will be a friend to systems integrators.

"For the [systems integrators, IBM is the competition," said Capellas. "[Solution providers will be much better off pulling us into [deals than IBM."

RapidScale co-founder and CEO Randy Jeter shared how the cloud service provider is attracting stronger talent and benefiting partners by paying more attention to its workplace, amenities and company culture.

Red Hat Technologies recently launched their new office location in the Fort Point neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Paul Cormier, President of Products and Technologies says that the new location will foster collaboration.